Gifts of Appreciated Stock

Before you reach for your checkbook to make a gift to support the campaign for northern Chautauqua, consider giving highly-appreciated stock.

Appreciated stock is frequently a far more advantageous gift to charity than giving cash. When you make a gift of shares to NCCF, you’ll typically be eligible for a charitable deduction at the shares’ fair market value on the date of the gift. Plus, NCCF is a charity and therefore won’t owe capital gains tax on the sale of the shares, leaving the full fair market value available for NCCF’s mission. By contrast, if you’d sold the shares yourself and given the proceeds to NCCF, you’d owe capital gains tax. This can be a big hit if you’ve held the shares for many years and they’ve got a low basis.

Please reach out to NCCF to learn more about how you can use your appreciated stock to support the future of our region. 

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Gifts through a Bequest

If you’ve put together an estate plan with the help of an attorney, chances are, you’re familiar with the term “bequest.” A bequest is an instruction for assets or money to transfer to a person or charity following your death.

Unfortunately, most Americans do not have a will, let alone understand the difference between a will and a trust (and the reason you still need a will even if you have a revocable living trust).

If you’ve not yet set up an estate plan, or if you already have a will or trust, now is always the best time to organize your assets and documents, including setting up a will and trust or making updates to the documents you already have. This allows you to incorporate a bequest to the campaign for northern Chautauqua in a way that makes the most sense for you and your family.

For example, you can include a bequest to NCCF in your will or revocable living trust (which is a vehicle you establish to avoid probate). You can leave a specific dollar amount, or a portion of the “remainder” of your estate or trust after distributions to family and other beneficiaries. You can update your will or trust anytime prior to your death. 

You can also support the campaign for northern Chautauqua through a beneficiary designation on a qualified retirement plan or life insurance policy. Our team is happy to provide you and your advisors with proper bequest language.

And remember, bequests of qualified retirement plans can be extremely tax-efficient. Funds flowing directly to NCCF from a retirement plan after your death will not be subject to income tax or estate tax. 

 We look forward to working with you!

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Gifts from IRAs

If you (and/or your spouse!) own one or more IRAs, and if you are over the age of 70 1/2, you may be eligible to make distributions from those accounts directly to support the campaign for northern Chautauqua.

To do this, you’ll work with the NCCF team and your advisors to use a tool called a “Qualified Charitable Distribution,” or “QCD.”

A Qualified Charitable Distribution permits you (and your spouse from your spouse’s own IRA or IRAs) to transfer up to $105,000 each year (2024 limit) from an IRA (or multiple IRAs) to a qualified charity, such as The Community Fund at NCCF. So. as a married couple, you and your spouse may be eligible to direct up to a total $210,000 per year (2024 limit) to charity from your IRAs and avoid significant income tax liability. Even better, the annual cap will be continue to be indexed for inflation going forward.

And, if you’ve reached an age when you are required by the IRS to take distributions from your IRAs, these distributions can count toward those Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs), thereby avoiding the income tax hit on those dollars.

To support the campaign, you can use a QCD to make a gift to either The Community Fund or to your own named community fund. In addition, you can name NCCF as the beneficiary to receive all or a portion of the remaining assets in your IRA following your death through a beneficiary designation. This type of bequest not only avoids estate tax, but also avoids the income tax on IRA proceeds that your children or other heirs would have to pay if you left the IRA assets to them.

Reach out to the NCCF team to learn more!

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Gifts of Complex Assets

Cash, stock, bequests, and IRA gifts are not the only ways to support the campaign for northern Chautauqua.

You can work with the NCCF team and your advisors to make a tax-deductible gift of a variety of assets.

Real estate

Real estate, such as farmland or commercial property, can be used to support the campaign in a variety of ways. An outright gift is always an option; lifetime gifts of real estate held for more than one year are deductible for income tax purposes at 100% of the fair market value of the property on the date of the gift, which also avoids capital gains tax and reduces the value of your taxable estate if estate tax will be an issue. Other ways to give real estate include a bargain sale or a transfer to a charitable remainder trust which produces lifetime income for you and your family.

Closely-held business interests

If you own a business, the NCCF team is happy to work with you and your advisors to explore how you might give shares in the business to support the campaign as a part of an overall estate plan. Not only will transfers be eligible for a charitable deduction during the year of transfer (and at fair market value if the shares are held for more than one year), but also these gifts could potentially reduce income tax burdens triggered upon a future sale of the business.

Be sure to talk with our team and your advisors well before any potential sale is in the works; otherwise, you could lose out on tax benefits. Gifts of closely-held business interests are powerful but can be tricky to administer.

Other “alternative” assets

The community foundation is happy to work with you and your advisors to explore options for giving other non-cash assets to the campaign for northern Chautauqua, including:

• Oil and gas interests

• Negotiable instruments

• Cryptocurrency

• Artwork

• Collectibles

We look forward to working with you to explore all the options!

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Gifts of Life Insurance

As you explore the opportunity to give to the campaign for northern Chautauqua, talk with your advisors to see if a gift of life insurance might be a fit for you.

It’s easy, for example, to name NCCF as the beneficiary of your life insurance policy. In particular, you may be evaluating so-called “second-to-die” life insurance policies as a shield against anticipated estate taxes, especially as the estate tax exemption is scheduled to drop back down at the end of 2025. 

In the case of whole life policies, naming NCCF as beneficiary and transferring the policy itself could be particularly advantageous because you may be able to make annual, tax-deductible contributions to NCCF to cover the annual premium.

Another idea is to consider increasing the coverage under an existing policy.. Because policy premiums generally do not rise proportionately to benefit amounts, expanding the benefits can be cost efficient. For example, if you would like each of four family-member beneficiaries to receive $250,000 from a million-dollar life insurance policy, adding $250,000 of benefit will typically not increase the premium by 25%. In fact, the benefit-to-premium ratio may improve. In a case like this, you could name the four family-member beneficiaries and NCCF to each receive ⅕ of the policy benefits. Depending on your overall financial and estate planning picture, a technique like this might truly deliver bang for the buck.  

Reach out to the NCCF team to explore ways you can use life insurance policies to support the campaign. We’d love to talk! 

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